Federal appeals court lifts Idaho ruling permitting abortions for women’s health

A federal appeals court paused a judge’s earlier ruling that ordered Idaho to allow exceptions to its abortion ban in cases where a doctor deemed it necessary to protect the mother’s health.

In a 2-1 decision issued on Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a doctor who sued over the state’s ban was unlikely to prevail on claims that the right to a health-saving abortion is constitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision there was no constitutional right to abortion, overturning its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Idaho and a dozen other states issued near-total abortion bans following the high court’s ruling. Abortion is restricted in an additional nine states, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights .

The appeals court’s pause applies to an 81-page decision issued by U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill in August, which the federal judge later limited to bar the state law’s enforcement against the plaintiff, Stacey Seyb.

“We think it unlikely that Dr. Seyb will be able to square the district court’s perspective on the history and tradition concerning abortions with the Supreme Court’s perspective in Dobbs,” the appeals court said in its decision.

Circuit Judges Kim Wardlaw and Consuelo Callahan made up the court’s majority in this ruling. Wardlaw, a Clinton appointee, issued a concurring opinion, in which she noted that the appeals court was “bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court.”

“As such, in light of the Dobbs majority opinion, I join Judge Callahan in concluding that Defendants have shown a likelihood of success on the merits,” Wardlaw continued.

In a dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon found the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision applied only to elective abortions and warned that some women could be “required to continue their pregnancies at serious, permanent risk to their health” because of this ruling.

“The risk, absent the injunction, to Dr. Seyb’s pregnant patients of serious and lasting harm short of death is definitionally a risk of irreparable injury,” she wrote.